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WASHINGTON The House on Thursday passed a massive package aimed at boosting domestic production of computer chips and keeping America competitive with China.

The vote came one day after the Senate passed the package, known as CHIPS-plus. It now heads to President Joe Bidens desk for his signature.

The bill passed 243-187, with most Republicans voting no and 24 Republicans bucking their own leadership and voting with Democrats. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., voted present.

Although 17 Senate Republicans backed the chips bill on Wednesday, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., had been whipping their rank-and-file members to vote against it during the past 24 hours, arguing it would funnel billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies and tax credits to a "specific industry that does not need additional government handouts."

"It's ridiculous, out-of-control spending that we don't have the money for; it's turned into a monster," conservative Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., told NBC News before the vote.

But some influential Republicans had made the case that passing the chips package was critical for national security and taking on China.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee whose state is home to chipmakers, said he had been in close contact with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Biden's point person on CHIPS who has been briefing lawmakers. Raimondo has emphasized to members that Taiwan makes 90 percent of the world's advanced semiconductor chips.

If China invades Taiwan, McCaul said, "they will own the global market."

"Guess who came out today strongly opposed to the chips bill? The Chinese Communist Party," McCaul told reporters. "If you want to know who hates this bill, who lobbies against it, the Chinese Communist Party. Why? Because they know it'll help us compete against them."

The centerpiece of the package is more than $50 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research. It also includes tens of billions of dollars more in authorizations for science and research programs, as well as for regional technology hubs around the country.

Supporters on Capitol Hill, as well as key members of Bidens Cabinet, have also argued that making microchips at home rather than relying on chipmakers in China, Taiwan and elsewhere is critical to U.S. national security, especially when it comes to chips used for weapons and military equipment.

Biden urged the House to pass the bill earlier Thursday, asking members to put politics aside and get it done to help the economy. We need to lower the cost of automobiles, appliances, smartphones, consumer electronics and so much more, he said.

The Congressional Budget OfficesaidCHIPS-plus would cost nearly $80 billion over the next decade.

But it is a slimmed-down version of a larger China competitiveness bill Congress had hoped to negotiate. As it became clear that lawmakers were not close to resolving their differences, Raimondo and other Biden administration officials urged members to find something they could pass before the monthlong August recess, and "CHIPS-plus" was born.

Scott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News.

Kyle Stewart contributed.

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House passes major computer chips and science bill to compete with China - NBC News

Recently, Governor Polis released a statement on the release of the National Governors Association (NGA) Chairmans Initiative Compact to Expand K-12 Computer Science Education, a national initiative supported by a bipartisan group of 44 governors including Governor Polis to expand K-12 computer science education nationally.

Educating kids to succeed in todays and tomorrows world is important for our future. Our National Governors Association Initiative to expand K-12 Computer Science Education is an interstate compact to help prepare students with the skills and experiences to thrive, said Gov. Polis. As a lifelong advocate for education and a former technology entrepreneur, I know the importance of computer science education and look forward to advancing our work in Colorado.

This action builds on the Polis Administrations work providing high-quality educational opportunities for Colorado students. Governor Polis is a member of the NGA Executive Committee and is the incoming Chairman of the Western Governors Association.

Show your support for Local Journalism by helping us do more of it. It's a kind and simple gesture that will help us continue to bring stories like this to you.

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Colorado Legislators Announce Initiative to Expand K-12 Computer Science Education - North Forty News

BENGALURU, India--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TalentSprint, a global edtech company and a market leader in transformational deeptech programs, today announced a multi-year and multi-program partnership with Carnegie Mellon Universitys (CMU) School of Computer Science (SCS), Executive & Professional Education Worlds #1 Computer Science School. The Advanced Certificate Program in DevOps, first to be launched under this partnership, aims at fulfilling a growing need for new-age DevOps professionals in the APAC region.

Most impacted by digital transformation, industries like BFSI, IT, Healthcare, Retail, Media and Entertainment are creating enormous opportunities for DevOps specialists globally. These market dynamics positions CMUs well-researched Advanced Certificate Program in DevOps as a significant addition in the upskilling journey of the aspirants.

On this prestigious association, Santanu Paul, CEO of TalentSprint, said This partnership has further strengthened our presence in the United States. CMUs School of Computer Science is iconic and this association is a validation of our success in path-breaking programs with leading institutes and global tech organizations in India and the US. Our first program with CMU aims at creating world-class DevOps specialists.

Commenting on the launch, Ram Konduru, Director of Executive Education at the CMU-SCS said, We were exploring international markets like India, Middle East and Southeast Asian markets that have a growing demand for tech professionals. We wanted to collaborate with a serious edtech company that could align with our core competencies and help us reach out to new geographies. We are happy to announce our association with TalentSprint and launch our first program in DevOps.

The Advanced Certificate Program in DevOps will help participants with in-depth knowledge of various new-age DevOps tools. The 6-month high-impact program, designed and taught by the expert faculty of CMU-SCS, who are globally renowned thought leaders in DevOps such as Professor Len Bass, and research scientists Hasan Yassar and Joseph Yankel. On successful completion, participants will receive CMUs globally recognized certificate. The program will be delivered on TalentSprints digital platform ipearl.ai. Applications for this program are open. To know more, applicants can visit the Program page cmu.talentsprint.com/devops

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Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science Executive Education and TalentSprint to create global DevOps experts - Business Wire

Engineering | News releases | Research | Technology

July 28, 2022

A University of Washington team created a new tool that can design a 3D-printable passive gripper and calculate the best path to pick up an object. The researchers tested this system on a suite of 22 objects, which are shown here.University of Washington

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, car manufacturing companies such as Ford quickly shifted their production focus from automobiles to masks and ventilators.

To make this switch possible, these companies relied on people working on an assembly line. It would have been too challenging for a robot to make this transition because robots are tied to their usual tasks.

Theoretically, a robot could pick up almost anything if its grippers could be swapped out for each task. To keep costs down, these grippers could be passive, meaning grippers pick up objects without changing shape, similar to how the tongs on a forklift work.

A University of Washington team created a new tool that can design a 3D-printable passive gripper and calculate the best path to pick up an object. The team tested this system on a suite of 22 objects including a 3D-printed bunny, a doorstop-shaped wedge, a tennis ball and a drill. The designed grippers and paths were successful for 20 of the objects. Two of these were the wedge and a pyramid shape with a curved keyhole. Both shapes are challenging for multiple types of grippers to pick up.

The team will present these findings Aug. 11 at SIGGRAPH 2022.

We still produce most of our items with assembly lines, which are really great but also very rigid. The pandemic showed us that we need to have a way to easily repurpose these production lines, said senior author Adriana Schulz, a UW assistant professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Our idea is to create custom tooling for these manufacturing lines. That gives us a very simple robot that can do one task with a specific gripper. And then when I change the task, I just replace the gripper.

Passive grippers cant adjust to fit the object theyre picking up, so traditionally, objects have been designed to match a specific gripper.

The most successful passive gripper in the world is the tongs on a forklift. But the trade-off is that forklift tongs only work well with specific shapes, such as pallets, which means anything you want to grip needs to be on a pallet, said co-author Jeffrey Lipton, UW assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Here were saying OK, we dont want to predefine the geometry of the passive gripper. Instead, we want to take the geometry of any object and design a gripper.

For any given object, there are many possibilities for what its gripper could look like. In addition, the grippers shape is linked to the path the robot arm takes to pick up the object. If designed incorrectly, a gripper could crash into the object en route to picking it up. To address this challenge, the researchers had a few key insights.

The points where the gripper makes contact with the object are essential for maintaining the objects stability in the grasp. We call this set of points the grasp configuration,' said lead author Milin Kodnongbua, who completed this research as a UW undergraduate student in the Allen School. Also, the gripper must contact the object at those given points, and the gripper must be a single solid object connecting the contact points to the robot arm. We can search for an insert trajectory that satisfies these requirements.

One of the objects was a blue 3D-printed bunny.University of Washington

When designing a new gripper and trajectory, the team starts by providing the computer with a 3D model of the object and its orientation in space how it would be presented on a conveyor belt, for example.

First our algorithm generates possible grasp configurations and ranks them based on stability and some other metrics, Kodnongbua said. Then it takes the best option and co-optimizes to find if an insert trajectory is possible. If it cannot find one, then it goes to the next grasp configuration on the list and tries to do the co-optimization again.

Once the computer has found a good match, it outputs two sets of instructions: one for a 3D printer to create the gripper and one with the trajectory for the robot arm once the gripper is printed and attached.

The team chose a variety of objects to test the power of the method, including some from a data set of objects that are the standard for testing a robots ability to do manipulation tasks.

We also designed objects that would be challenging for traditional grasping robots, such as objects with very shallow angles or objects with internal grasping where you have to pick them up with the insertion of a key, said co-author Ian Good, a UW doctoral student in the mechanical engineering department.

Play this video to see how a gripper can pick up one of the challenging shapes: a 3D-printed wedge. Credit: University of Washington

The researchers performed 10 test pickups with 22 shapes. For 16 shapes, all 10 pickups were successful. While most shapes had at least one successful pickup, two did not. These failures resulted from issues with the 3D models of the objects that were given to the computer. For one a bowl the model described the sides of the bowl as thinner than they were. For the other an object that looks like a cup with an egg-shaped handle the model did not have its correct orientation.

The algorithm developed the same gripping strategies for similarly shaped objects, even without any human intervention. The researchers hope that this means they will be able to create passive grippers that could pick up a class of objects, instead of having to have a unique gripper for each object.

One limitation of this method is that passive grippers cant be designed to pick up all objects. While its easier to pick up objects that vary in width or have protruding edges, objects with uniformly smooth surfaces, such as a water bottle or a box, are tough to grasp without any moving parts.

Still, the researchers were encouraged to see the algorithm do so well, especially with some of the more difficult shapes, such as a column with a keyhole at the top.

Play this video to see how a gripper can pick up the column with a keyhole at the top. Credit: University of Washington

The path that our algorithm came up with for that one is a rapid acceleration down to where it gets really close to the object. It looked like it was going to smash into the object, and I thought, Oh no. What if we didnt calibrate it right?' said Good. And then of course it gets incredibly close and then picks it up perfectly. It was this awe-inspiring moment, an extreme roller coaster of emotion.

Yu Lou, who completed this research as a masters student in the Allen School, is also a co-author on this paper. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation and a grant from the Murdock Charitable Trust. The team has also submitted a patent application: 63/339,284.

For more information, contact Kodnongbua at milink@cs.washington.edu, Lipton at jilipton@uw.edu, Schulz at adriana@cs.washington.edu, Good at iangood@uw.edu and Lou at louyu27@cs.washington.edu.

Grant number: EEC 2035717

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How to help assembly-line robots shift gears and pick up almost anything - University of Washington

I speak to women in the cybersecurity industry almost every single day, from our own security team, to prospective candidates, female CISOs, and security professionals at our customers' organizations. I ask them all some version of the same question: What do you wish every woman thinking about a career in cybersecurity knew?

After dozens if not hundreds of these conversations, there are three themes that I hear time and time again as the most important things to know for women when evaluating the cybersecurity profession.

Women still are underrepresented in software engineering and IT. And many times, cybersecurity gets lumped together with those, and with that comes the belief that it requires the same skills. And that's simply not the case. At the core, the job of cybersecurity teams is to assess, prioritize, and work to resolve risks; nothing in there requires a STEM background or understanding of software engineering.

Sure, these risks might related to code a developer wrote, or a cloud environment the IT team deployed, but reviewing alerts, assessing the impact to the business and the potential risk, and determining the appropriate course of action those arenot things that require a security professional to be a developer or to moonlight in IT. Computer science skills and backgrounds aren't a barrier to the cybersecurity profession we're a business function, not a technical one.

Over the last few years, we've seen more and more essential services, critical infrastructure, and leisure activities move online. This transformation has changed how we all work and live, and brought every aspect of modern business into the digital world, no matter what team you're on.

Software engineering teams creating new applications, hardware teams developing new mobile and virtual-reality devices, IT and DevOps teams building and maintaining cloud infrastructure, sales and marketing teams using all of these resources to track customer interactions and business metrics everyone has a piece of the digital pie.

If you're on a cybersecurity team, you're tasked with keeping all these teams safe, each and every day. But this isn't something you can do alone. You need help from all of them in order to deliver that protection. This can be anything from asking a team to change their process to support a better security outcome, to requesting a sudden change in priorities to address a critical risk.

Getting this help requires an investment in building relationships, finding the right communication styles for different teams or peers, and focusing on working together to help everyone be safer. Without investments in these skills, you'll find yourself siloed from the very people you're trying to protect every day.

Look, there's no denying cybersecurity is still a male dominated industry. In 2013, women were a mere 11% of the industry. But we're changing that every single day. Today, women are a quarter of the cybersecurity workforce. It took seven years to go from 11% to 20%, but only two years to go from there to 25%. We're closing the gender gap in cybersecurity faster than ever, across all aspects of the organization. And we're doing it together.

There are great organizations and programs out there that champion equality and diversity in cybersecurity, fromWomen in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) andWomen's Society of Cyberjutsu (WSC), to organizations like Cyersity that support all underrepresented groups in the industry. The SANS Institute has an immersion course for women career-changers and college students looking to learn more. There's a plethora of tools, groups, and resources to support you in your journey every step of the way. You won't be alone and every step you take helps us all.

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What Women Should Know Before Joining the Cybersecurity Industry - DARKReading